JPH0155161B2 - - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Field of Application of the Invention] The present invention relates to a method of operating a picking device capable of picking in units of a number or in units of a plurality of items.
In particular, the present invention relates to a picking device that minimizes picking time in an automated warehouse.

[Background of the invention]

The order-picking system, which enables picking by the number of pieces by mounting a picking device on the lifting platform of a conventional stack car crane, is a stack car equipped with a travel drive device (not shown) as shown in Figure 1. A crane 4 travels along a rail 5 laid parallel to the rack 1, and the stacker crane 4
Lifting drive installed at the top of the (not shown)
The elevating table 6 is raised and lowered in the vertical direction along the mast, and a fork device 9 built into the elevating table 6 and extendable and retractable in a direction perpendicular to the frontage direction is used to carry out loading and unloading operations in units of pallets. A vacuum device 7 is installed in parallel with the fork device 9 on the lower surface of the lifting platform 6 to be able to expand and contract in the same direction as the fork device 9.
A large number of Bakiyum 8 are regularly arranged on the lower surface of the tip.
This is done by suctioning the top surface of the article. Then, the lifting platform 6 lowers the articles attracted to the suction surface of the vacuum chamber 8, and the articles are delivered onto the conveyor device 3 installed on the floor along the frontage direction, and are delivered by the conveyor device 3 to the exit. transported to.
In the above-mentioned picking method, in addition to the running and raising/lowering operations of the stack car crane 4, the vacuum device 7's operation of picking up articles in the rack and discharging them onto the conveyor device 3 is added, and the number of items picked at one time is particularly large. In some cases, it takes a great deal of time to pick up the articles, such as having to perform several operations from suctioning the articles by the vacuum device 7 to discharging them onto the conveyor device 3.

Further, in general, the operation of mechanically taking out several articles from among a plurality of articles loaded on a pallet takes a long time because the movement of the arm is multidimensional. For this reason, when the number of items to be picked is large, picking takes too much time, resulting in an automated warehouse with poor delivery efficiency.

In addition, with conventional stacker cranes equipped with automatic picking devices, the picker's arm or hand enters the unit load inside the rack to grasp or pick up the required number of items and then deliver them onto the delivery conveyor. . This method requires space for the arms and hands to enter into the rack, which is a waste of space due to the structure of the rack.

[Purpose of the invention]

An object of the present invention is to provide a picking system capable of high-speed picking.

[Summary of the invention]

The present invention provides a plurality of picking tables in parallel in the traveling direction of a stacker crane, and also provides a shipping pallet waiting area along the direction in which the plurality of picking tables are arranged, so that articles on the pallets of the plurality of picking tables can be picked. The present invention is characterized in that a picking means is provided for picking and placing the pallets on a pallet at a shipping pallet waiting area.

[Embodiments of the invention]

An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to FIGS. 2, 3, and 4. As shown in FIGS. 2 and 3, the stacker crane 4 travels between two racks 1 and 1' arranged in parallel to predetermined blocks of racks divided by type, and lifts and lowers the racks. The unit load 2 is brought into the center of the lifting platform 6 along with the pallet by a fork 9 configured to be able to go in and out of the rack 1 and the rack 1', and is transported to the unloading zone 18. When the stacker crane 4 moves to the delivery zone 18, the unit load 2 on the fork 9 is transferred to the picking station 17 or directly to the shipping pallet waiting area, and when the transfer is completed, the stacker crane 4 moves to the next step. The vehicle drives into the warehouse to unload the unit load to be picked. As shown in FIG. 4, the picking station 17 is equipped with a first picking table 12 and a second picking table 13, and pallets taken out by a stacker crane are transferred to empty picking tables 12 and 13. Can be replaced.
However, the pallets are delivered preferentially to the picking table 12. When a load is brought into the picking station 17, the vacuum device 7, which can move multiple pallets in the same direction as the running direction of the stacker crane 4, moves the upper part of the picking station 17 to the required number of pieces on the shipping pallet on the shipping pallet waiting area 14. After the transfer is completed, the shipping conveyor 16 transports the items to the shipping port. Here, the shipping pallet waiting area 14 is a belt conveyor having a driving source. 15 is a conveyor for supplying empty pallets to the shipping pallet waiting area 14. Further, the vacuum device 7 is a device as a picking means, and has a plurality of vacuum devices 8 that can be adsorbed onto the upper surface of the article, and these are suspended so as to be able to rise and fall as shown in the figure. It consists of a traveling body that moves, and a vacuum unit 10 for adsorbing vacuum 8 to articles. Bakyum 8 is picking table 12 or 1
3 and the shipping pallet waiting area 14. In addition, the static car crane in this case is
It has a lifting platform 6 with a fork 9, but the vacuum device 7 of FIG. 1 does not.

Next, when the stacker crane 4 takes out a pallet newly loaded with a unit load, the unit load is transferred to the empty picking table 12 or 13 of the picking station 17 along with the pallet, and when the transfer is completed. The stacker crane 4 moves to the picking table 13 or 12 where the required number of pallets have been picked, brings the picked pallet to the center of the lifting platform 6 of the stacker crane 4, and carries out work to return it to the original block on the rack. Let's do it. After that, the same operation is repeated for the number of items in the shipping slip.

In addition, especially when the picking quantity (the quantity of articles required on the pallet on the shipping pallet waiting area 14) and the quantity of articles on the pallet on the lifting platform 6 of the stacker crane 4 are equal, the stacker crane 4 The vehicle travels to the shipping pallet waiting area 14, transfers the entire pallet to the shipping pallet waiting area 14 using a fork 9, and is conveyed to the shipping port by a shipping conveyor 16. At this time, from the shipping pallet supply conveyor 15 to the shipping pallet waiting area 1
No shipping pallets are sent to No. 4.

〔Effect of the invention〕

According to the present invention, automatic picking work can be performed in parallel with the traveling and lifting operations of a stacker crane that performs warehousing work in pallet units. It is possible to perform picking in units of numbers and in units of multiple items in the same amount of time.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

Fig. 1 is a perspective view of a conventional automatic picking type stack car crane, Fig. 2 is a perspective view of the entire automated warehouse which is an embodiment of the present invention, Fig. 3 is a plan view of the automated warehouse portion, and Fig. 4 is a perspective view of a conventional automatic picking type stack car crane. FIG. 2 is a perspective view of a picking system for an automated warehouse that can be used in the same embodiment. 7... Bakyum device, 8... Bakyum, 1
0... Vacuum unit, 11... Frame, 12
...First picking table, 13...Second picking table, 14...Shipping pallet waiting area, 15...Shipping pallet supply conveyor, 16...Shipping conveyor, 17...Picking station.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A rack for storing a plurality of pallets carrying a plurality of articles, and a stacker crane that runs along the rack and transports the pallets between the rack and the plurality of picking tables. a shipping pallet waiting area provided along the arrangement direction of the plurality of picking tables, connected to the outside of the rack, and capable of placing pallets; and the plurality of picking tables and the shipping pallet waiting area. moving above the
a picking means capable of picking a required number of articles on a pallet while being lowered at each of the picking positions, and capable of lowering and placing the picked articles on the pallet at the shipping pallet waiting area; Warehouse picking equipment consisting of.